{"id":433,"date":"2004-04-08T06:56:17","date_gmt":"2004-04-08T10:56:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/wordpress\/?p=433"},"modified":"2004-04-08T06:56:17","modified_gmt":"2004-04-08T10:56:17","slug":"mosaic-special-arab-tv-war-of-information","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=433","title":{"rendered":"Mosaic Special: Arab TV – War of Information"},"content":{"rendered":"

Currently featured on LinkTV<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Broadcast Times <\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

This Mosaic Special Report examines how different broadcasters in the Middle East, including Alhurra, are reporting on the same stories. How do the underlying values, politics, and patriotism of each media channel impact what you see on the screen? What role does journalistic integrity and professionalism play? How do the governments in each region affect the way news is reported? And finally, how can we better understand each other by watching the vastly different reports coming from each network? To find answers, we talk to the producers and journalists responsible for news coverage from the wide range of Arabic language networks – independent, state-sponsored, Islamic and now even U.S. backed. Get your first look at the US’s newest media weapon: will “The Free One” add balance to Middle Eastern News?<\/div>\n

If you go to this link<\/a> you can stream the show. It’s fascinating. The FOX & Alhurra treatments of the one-year occupation of Iraq are breathtaking in their brazenly propagandist nature. The clip from al-Arabiya is not only more fair and balanced than FOX and Alhurra’s, it features the work and honours the memories of slain correspondent Ali al-Khatib<\/a> and cameraman Ali Abd al-Aziz<\/a>. Viewing it conveyed to me how very popular this particular reporting team was and how deeply their loss must be felt, making the walk-out protest<\/a> by Arab journalists before Colin Powell’s March 30th speech at the Baghdad convention centre all the more poignant.<\/p>\n

Jon Alterman<\/a>, Director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is the US salesman on the show. Norman J. Pattiz<\/a>, “chairman of the BBG’s Middle East Committee<\/a> who spearheaded development of Alhurra”, could not make the programme. Alterman’s performance was weak, for instance, after viewing the Alhurra clip he defended its “heavy-handed” manner with yet more misinformation, charging Arab coverage of the pre-emptive strike on Iraq as being “uniformly” misleading and inaccurate. All of his efforts to bolster the merits of this taxpayer-funded<\/a>, commercial free<\/a> propaganda effort were easily and masterfully discredited by a brilliant guest on the programme, As’ad Abukhalil<\/a>, Associate Professor of Political Science at Cal State Stanislaus and Research Fellow at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of California at Berkeley. He is also the authour of Saudi Arabia and the United States<\/a>, Bin Laden, Islam, and America’s New “War on Terrorism”<\/a>, and Historical Dictionary of Lebanon<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The Center for Strategic and International Studies:<\/b><\/p>\n

Excerpt:<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

…the Center for Strategic and *International* Studies (CSIS).[1a<\/a>] It is one of those outfits calling themselves “private” think tanks, “independent” policy institutes, or “non-governmental” organizations. When the press quotes their statements, it appears that they sought an academic or ‘outside’ opinion. The impression is false.<\/p>\n

Everybody involved with CSIS appears to be a creature of the US foreign policy and\/or intelligence establishment. As their website explains, “CSIS is led by John J. Hamre, formerly deputy secretary of defense…”[2<\/a>] And it has a select group of nine ‘counselors’ which includes a former secretary of defense (William S. Cohen), a former assistant secretary of state (Richard Fairbanks), a former intelligence-committee senator (Sam Nunn, who also chairs the board of trustees), a former CIA director (James Schlesinger), a general who was assistant for national security affairs in two administrations (Brent Scowcroft), a former secretary of defense (Harold Brown), a former US secretary of labor (William E. Brock), and Henry Kissinger, who needs no introduction.[3<\/a>] <\/p>\n

Quite a crowd.<\/p>\n

The ninth member is Zbigniew Brzezinski,[4<\/a>] former national security advisor in the Carter Administration, and the man responsible for thousands upon thousands of innocent deaths in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Brzezinski *invented* the idea of US sponsorship of Muslim terrorists to destabilize foreign countries.[5<\/a>] <\/p>\n

Tony Cordesman, his underling, is on record stating his agreement with such policies.<\/p>\n

You see, this mouthpiece for the above establishment crowd “is also a national security analyst for ABC News.”<\/p><\/div>\n

Current link<\/a> for Cordesman and two<\/a> examples<\/a> of the ‘expertise’ he brings to ABC.<\/p>\n

Finally, I agree with As’ad Abukhalil, that the United States can pour millions into propaganda efforts like Alhurra and it will not make a dent in how Arabs view the United States. <\/p>\n

The atonement for and cessation of these sorts of foreign policy decisions<\/a> would be a logical place to start.<\/p>\n

On a related note, Javier Couso, brother of Spanish journalist Jose Couso, placed flowers inside the razor-wire surrounding the Palestine Hotel in honour of his brother and continues to demand an investigation into his death which occurred one year ago today when a U.S. tank fired a shell into the hotel<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Currently featured on LinkTV. Broadcast Times This Mosaic Special Report examines how different broadcasters in the Middle East, including Alhurra, are reporting on the same stories. How do the underlying values, politics, and patriotism of each media channel impact what … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdXTf-6Z","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}